An unofficial history of SeaWorld

You can get the official version of SeaWorld’s 20-year history in the wilds of western Bexar County in Weekender and at MySA.com. Here’s a more personal look back:

1988: SeaWorld’s inaugural season. Within months, our house is filled with stuffed Shamu dolls of all sizes. And my daughter, then 4, announces that she wants to be a Shamu trainer when she grows up.

March 1991: I get thoroughly soaked at a press preview for the opening of the park’s first rides — Texas Splashdown and Rio Loco. I’m so wet, I take a break to go back to the minivan and change clothes. There was no change of shoes, unfortunately, so I squished around the park all night. And they had a new arcade debuting, including a guess-your-age booth. Much to my chagrin, the girl at the booth accurately guessed my age (37) but thought my wife was 32 (although she’s actually six months older than I am). But at least I threw a softball into a milk can and won a SeaWorld T-shirt — after about 500 tries.

Sept. 14, 1991: I’m assigned to cover a split Diez y Seis concert — the Texas Tornadoes in the afternoon, and Linda Ronstadt doing her mariachi thing at night. I wrote the following for the Express-News:

“Judging from the way she treated the two Diez y Seis concerts Saturday at Sea World of Texas, Mother Nature likes traditional mariachi tunes better than conjunto mixed with rock ‘n’ roll. If not, why else would Linda Ronstadt have been given a cool, clear evening in which to perform, while the crowd waiting to see the Texas Tornados got drenched five minutes before the South Texas supergroup was supposed to go on?”

Yes, I mostly remember getting very wet on the U.S. Map that afternoon for the Tornados, who played on anyway. Their set included “She’s About a Mover,” Freddy Fender’s two biggies and Augie Meyers’ “Hey Baby Que Paso” and “Velma From Selma” as well as 10 tunes from the Tornados’ two albums. Doug Sahm said of “Que Paso” —”This is one of the baddest Tex-Mex songs ever written. We call it the national anthem of San Antonio.”

Meanwhile, my kids (who were probably undercover somewhere else with my wife while I was getting soaked during the Tornados’ set), really got into Ronstadt, mainly because she had recently done a couple of her mariachi tunes on “Sesame Street.” And both groups did their versions of “Volver,” naturally.

Oct. 5, 1992: Bonnie Raitt plays SeaWorld with John Prine opening and joining her for an encore duet on “Angel From Montgomery.” This remains her only theme-park show in her long career. A decade later, she still remembered the show. “I was walking around the park and heard John Prine’s voice coming out of a toadstool,” she told music writer Jim Beal Jr. “They were piping the concert all over the place. But it was cool because I got to hang out with penguins backstage.”

June 12, 1992: I somehow wind up covering Paula Abdul’s dance-fever show on the U.S. Map. For you younger folks, this was back before “American Idol,” when she was a bona fide pop star. I remember it being a steamy, bug-filled night; at one point, she exclaimed, “I think I got a bug in my bra! How did that happen?” I also remember writing and filing my review from a kiddie chair in the Lost Kids area. Here’s a bit of what I wrote, if you’re interested:

“Paula Abdul has made herself into a competent singer, but Friday’s Sea World performance shows if it were left up to her, she’d rather dance the night away. Essentially, that’s what she and her agile troupe of dancers did. Each of the songs she performed in the 90-minute show was elaborately choreographed, with the music and lyrics forming the foundation rather than taking center stage.

“Performing before a sweltering crowd whose enthusiasm seemed directly proportional to the individual viewer’s distance from the stage, Abdul remade her hits into elaborate dance revues.”

She also sang and danced to her MTV videos and tap-danced during her encore.

July 24, 1992: Noting that the park had two follically challenged singers, Michael Bolton and James Taylor, scheduled for consecutive nighttime concerts, I wrote this headline:

Bolton, Taylor offer hair-razing weekend

Sorry. The story wasn’t any better:

“Sea World probably didn’t have a ‘Balding is Beautiful’ theme in mind when the theme park booked Michael Bolton and James Taylor on consecutive days this weekend. It just sorta worked out that way.

“Besides having distinctive voices and lots of hits in common, Bolton, who will perform Friday with Celine Dion opening, and Taylor, who will perform Saturday, are also leading candidates for Rogaine treatment.”

1999: The kids go with me to a press preview of the Steel Eel. My son made the mistake of eating a bit too much BEFORE riding the new coaster. When he got off, he was as green as the Eel. Of course, we STILL have the stuffed eels from the occasion laying around the rec room to prove it.